Mohan Kaul (L), director general of the Commonwealth Business Council, speaks to former White House economist Nouriel Roubini after the latter delivered an address at the Commonwealth Business Forum in Perth.

Anglogold Ashanti chief executive officer Mark Cutifani answers a question during a news conference at the Business Forum ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting (CHOGM) in Perth.

A local Noongar didgeridoo player gives a traditional welcome as Mohan Kaul, director general of the Commonwealth Business Council (centre L-background) and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard (2nd R-background) greet Noongar elder Elizabeth Haydn (back R) at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Business Forum.

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar gives a speech during the opening ceremony of the Business Forum.

Red tape has joined the carbon and mining taxes as a prime concern of leaders of Australia’s resource sector, as three industry figures say regulation is hampering the development of the giant mining and petroleum projects underpinning the nation’s wealth.

At the Commonwealth Business Forum in Perth on Wednesday, Australia’s richest person and ore magnate
Gina Rinehart
,
Wesfarmers
chief
Richard Goyder
and
Woodside Petroleum
managing director
Peter Coleman
were united in their disquiet at the growing regulatory burden on the resources industry.

Mrs Rinehart, who is developing the $7.2 billion Roy Hill project in Western Australia, said her company had to date applied for 3104 permits and approvals for the mine, railway and port developments.

“One of the issues that needs to be tackled is the cost, risk and time lost on approvals, permits and licences before revenue can be earned, [which] has very greatly increased in Australia, making it almost impossible for small companies to carry and comply with such burdens," Mrs Rinehart said.

“If our costs get out of kilter through excessive taxation or excessive regulation on top of our other high costs we already have, this is just making it more difficult."

She was backed by Mr Goyder, who said the regulatory impost was dampening entrepreneurship in the economy. Wesfarmers owns major coal deposits in Queensland.

“Over time Australian business – large, small, public and private – has been pretty good at generating wealth, and I think it is incumbent on government to generate an environment where business can grow wealth," he said.

“And once that wealth is generated, as long as it is done in an ethical, sustainable way, then I think you can have a debate about how that wealth is distributed.

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“What I fear is in fact we create less wealth, and the pie gets smaller."

Mr Goyder said Wesfarmers would not be too affected by the mining tax but it was taking steps to minimise its carbon emissions ahead of next year’s introduction of the carbon tax.

“I felt for some time [the carbon tax] was inevitable because of the political landscape, and our approach, given that, has been to deal with it as best we can across the Wesfarmers group," he said.

“We are a significant CO² emitter through our manufacturing businesses but also our retail businesses. Refrigeration in Coles is the biggest CO² emitter in Wesfarmers, so we are doing a lot of work to reduce energy consumption and reduce our CO² emissions and financial cost, which ultimately will be a good thing."

Mrs Rinehart, whose wealth BRW estimated at $10 billion in June, said taxes and increasing costs of red tape were harming Australia’s international competitiveness, and she repeated her call for a special northern economic zone in Australia, to include investment incentives and allowances for cheaper overseas labour.

WA faces a shortfall of 150,000 workers by 2017, according to latest state government forecasts.

“The challenge for Australia is to be cost-competitive," she said.

“We tend to see ourselves in Australia as unique and we’re not – there are minerals all over this world and we have got to be able to ship them out competitively or else countries will buy them elsewhere."

Mrs Rinehart said a rosy future was “not a foregone conclusion, and the advantages we currently enjoy are tempered by the challenges that will test our capacity to deliver goods and services competitively.

“If we choose to face up to the reality that Australia needs to be more cost-competitive in this world and not be mesmerised by our current good fortune – a good fortune that regrettably will not last – and avoid imposing anti-business taxation measures and policies which destroy Australia’s international competitiveness, and continue to invest in appropriate infrastructure, then Australia and Western Australia may serve as a business hub long into the future."

Mr Coleman said policymakers must work with industry to ensure that as well as more training, there was greater mobility of labour, and easier access to foreign workers, especially during construction phases of projects when significant workforces were needed, he said.

Woodside has struggled to bed down its $15 billion WA Pluto natural gas project, in part because of soaring wage costs in a stretched labour market.

“Our visiting worker program is extremely important to us," Mr Coleman said.

“Australia has a long history of migrant worker programs. The industry does know what it needs to do. The challenge is we tend to see policies that put us in a box. We need to be more long term-focused."

Mrs Rinehart also warned against “resource nationalism", such as the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, which “damages investor confidence and renders formally attractive and value-adding projects less viable".

“Even in this state of WA, the leading resources state, we have seen overall meterage in exploration drilling drop to pre-mineral boom levels," she said. “Without exploration, our mining industry cannot expand… We need policies that attract such investment."